In transit for 45 hours...not the best way to get home happily.

But we made it :)

After a looong silent meditation retreat (yes, ten days without speaking is harder than it sounds) Bru and I left the Ashram to head for the Delhi airport. Which involved taking a harrowing cab ride over the mountains, a subsequent hot, and noisy ten hour bus ride to Delhi, followed by a long auto-rickshaw ride, which didn't drop us off at the airport, nope, had to take another bus to get to the terminal itself, and then a seven hour flight to Kiev, a stopover in dirty Kiev,and finally, an eleven hour flight to good old JFK.

That all doesn't, of course, include the specifics- like on our last ride to the airport- what do we see on the highways of India? Oh just any common sights- people walking on the highway itself, alongside peddlers with old wooden carts, barreling their way through bicycles, rickshaws, cars, nearly getting run over by the trucks, buses, and of course....the elephants. Just happily plodding down the highway,cramming and jamming in together on India's very own i-95. Nice.

I won't go into the excruciatingly bureaucratic several hours Bru and I spent dealing with her boarding pass at the airport. Just too painful of an experience. Suffice it to say that Beruria was listed as a Male on her ticket. And a Female on her passport. Such a sudden gender change brought the entire Aerosvit staff up in arms, and for some unknown reason (other than, we're in India) it took a very long while to fix it. On the flip side, during the wait I got to find out all those little things you miss out when you're meditating for ten days. Like that my sister had a girl (after three boys-yay!) and her name's Aviva :)

Other than that the rest of the trip was filled with all the frustrating nuances a trip through Kiev includes, like long lines, wrong lines, and a drunken Aleksanderrr slurring all over us.

Landing home was just so nice. I clapped. English everywhere. Cleanliness everywhere. Actual water fountains in the airport. Signs, and bathrooms, and smiles.

Reaching home was even better. Friends and family. Food, and a bed with a mattress. Taps with running water, an actual toilet- it's just those little things. A hot shower and a hot meal. Can't really ask for anything more than that...

Just very thankful to be home. Seven months is along time. Public hakarat hatov to Bru, who kept me sane through this whole experience, and became (a la Prem B. song...-) "a teacher, mentor, and friend."

And very thankful to all of you for following me through this whole thing, for encouraging, commenting, supporting and just being there. I can't ask for better friends and I'm so excited to see all of you in person.

Now off to take my second hot showers in eight hours....

With Love,

Alana

Hodu L'Hashem Ki Tov

Going to be home in two weeks. fourteen days.
Am endlessly excited.

A lot to say about Dharamsala but not enough time. Cooking classes were excellent (cannot wait to make momos and tingmo for y'all), teaching English was nice (had two Nepali girls which was fun for me) and our one day trek up the beautiful snowcapped mountain was intense.
Just a few short thoughts:
-Tibetan people are the nicest. Sweet and genuine and gentle. And they practice what they preach.
-What happened in Tibet is atrocious and the fact that I knew nothing about it, even more so. China took over an entire country, and persecuted and exiled many of its people. Please, inform yourselves.http://www.freetibet.org/about
- The longing of people here to return to Tibet is eerily reminiscent of galus bavel
-Eli's english class was asked what would make them happy and every response was one or both of the above: "Help others," and "Hear the Dalai Lama speak." That's great.

Also, we went to a concert of a local band here. They were surprisingly very good- a blend of Western and traditional music. Check em out-http://jjiexilebrothers.com/

Leaving for a ten day silent meditation retreat tomorrow. (I know that's insane). Flying home on the 12th so I'll be incommunicado until then. Wish me luck!

So the Taj Mahal is quite beautiful. Less so when you're sick and delirious as I was on the day we visited. I'm pretty sure Elie has a series of embarrassing pictures of me curled up on random benches, sleeping away my fever.

Thankfully, I was cured a few days later and had a week to enjoy Rishikesh- which is considered a spiritual center and yoga capital of the world. For me however, Rishikesh will always be reminiscent of several different things. Like the place where I celebrated Color War. The place where I met a real, live guru. The place where I shared a meditation cave with John Lennon. And, the place where I learned how to be a Chabad Rebbetzin.

Let's break it down-

Color War

So, it turned out that there's this ancient Hindu festival called Holi. AKA the FUNNEST holiday ever. It celebrates spring (and some other weird stuff) with bonfires, dancing, several illegal substances, and most importantly COLORS. As in, people take colored powder, or colored water and throw it on each other. All over. All day and night. By the end of Holi the streets are filled with happy looking aliens in varying shades of bright pinks, purples, reds, greens, blues and so on. It's amazing. Kind of like the best Color War you can ever imagine. Also, it luckily coincided exactly with Purim so I didn't even need to dress up...

Guru

We heard from a few people about Prem Baba (Prem- Love, Father-Baba), a Brazilian spiritual teacher (and originally a psychologist) who travels around the world holing retreats and talks. I decided to go to one of his Satsang and entered the ashram at around 10:30 to find several hundred people sitting on cushions and chanting/singing. I didn't understand the words but the feel was nice- calming and peaceful. After about an hour, Prem Baba came in and spoke. I wouldn't say he said anything earth-shattering (love, love, love) but there was something there in his countenance-shining, and bright, and open and friendly. Sometimes you can just tell when a person is good or happy or holy. After his talk there was some more singing, some dancing, and people lined up to meet him, touch his feet (a holy practice) , and give him gifts (nothing crazy- fruits, flowers, and the like). I went back a few times, mainly because I really liked the feel of the place. He's visiting New York in the next couple of months, so if you want an alternative experience, check it out. http://www.prembaba.org.br/home_eng.htm

Beatles

Not to make generalizations here or anything but the Beatles are probably responsible for bringing Eastern philosophy to the Western world. They spent some time in Rishikesh at the Ashram of the Maharishi Mahesh Yoga (and you can read all about the ensuing controversy here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharishi_Mahesh_Yogi#Interaction_with_The_Beatles)

The Ashram is still around today, although completely deserted and run over by trees and brush. It's weird that no one's capitalized on the place (I mean, people would definitely pay for guided tours, and a In The Footsteps of the Beatles Retreat) but it worked to our advantage. Me, Bru, Eli and our awesome new friends Ilana and Bloom played in the Ashram for a few hours. There are all these cool nooks and crannies, random meditation caves, underground bunkers/halls and the like. The best part was making up where the Beatles had actually been- at the end of the day we decided we had meditated in John's cave and did some yoga in Paul's room.

Lastly- How I learned how to be a Chabad Rebbetzin

Our first day in Rishikesh we hit up the Chabad, as per usual, and met the Rabbi and his wife Miri (who is sweet and kind and probably 20). They were new to India, having come on shlichus just for Purim-Pesach time. Let's just say they didn't have so much experience cooking a Seuda for hundreds of people, and at 8 AM Purim day I found myself up to my elbows in Challah dough. Spent the rest of the day cooking and organizing and- sof, sof, I now am confident in my abilities as a Chabad wife, and am proficient in pulling off a Seuda for the masses. The most entertaining part of the day for me (other than the Holi celebrations outside) was how invested Chabad was in the effort to smuggle alcohol into Rishikesh for the seuda. (Rishikesh, as a Hindu town, is pure veg and totally dry)

We're in Dharamsala now, home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It is by far my favorite place in India- that might have something to do with the fact that we're basically in Tibet here. And it's surrounded by gorgeous, snowcapped mountains. Getting here was insane though.

Besides for the fact that Bru and I were trapped in a taxi that started rolling backwards down, and then off, the side of a hugely steep mountain, our train ride was noisy, bumpy, and uncomfortable. I was having trouble sleeping and was wide awake at one in the morning when a large Indian family illegally (aka they didn't have tickets) entered our space. Quite noisily. Elie, Bru and the GleishBlooms awoke as a result. This family then tried to squish themselves into our area. Noisily. They turned on the bright light. I think some of us were pretty agitated at having been awoken and asked for some quiet as well as for the light to be turned off. They didn't listen, kept the light on, and proceeded to talk. Noisily. One of our group reached over and switched the light off. They turned it back on. We might have tried pointing out that they were in our compartment, that it was one in the morning, that they were making a lot of noise, and that people wanted to and had been sleeping. It didn't work. So, after one final straw (it might have been an entire family attempting to sit on Bloom, but who knows) Elie had it."Okay, you know what!," he yelled out. "Tomorrow, I'm going to eat an entire cow, just for you!"

I'm sure I'll have adventures to post (momo cooking and Buddhist philosophy classes are in the near future) so more to come....

What can I say about India? Really?

India is deceptively honest, or honestly deceptive- I'm not sure which one is a more accurate description.

Everything here is bold. People don't hide things.

Desperation is the best word I can think of, and I see it all over.

It's present in the sight of grown men squatting on train tracks to relieve themselves, it glares in your face as a young girl holds up her baby brother to your taxi cab window and begs for milk, it glances at you while a crowd of street children surrounds you, crushes you, chanting 'money, money, money.'

And the desperation becomes even uglier as the wealth disparity emerges too- you see it as you walk from an air conditioned train car filled with wealthy businessmen sipping chai on their leather seats , to the doorway between compartments, jam packed with large families crouched on the urine stained floor, or as you ride a taxi pass luxury malls and Audi dealerships on one side, muddy slums and leper colonies on the other.

But nowhere is desperation more present to me on a daily basis than in the voice of the shopkeepers. These people are anything but subtle. They flock, they pounce, they attack. And you've never heard voices so heavily laden with anguish . It's all there- in the rude "Come here you," the pleading "Please, please to come in," the slightly sinister "Yeees, you have look," even the funny "You enjoy spend money?,"- their words literally drip with sadness, hope, and despair.

Yesterday, as I attempted to navigate the swarms of people in the market, I walked past a simple store selling trinkets. The same bangles and mirrors and carvings as every store on that street, and the one before it. One shopkeeper stood outside.

"You come here," he demanded

I shook my head no and continued to walk on.

He looked back after me.

"No?" he questioned.

I half smiled and shook my head again.

He looked at me 'No." And he sighed . But I'll be waiting for you..."

I think I sighed too. Because it was as if all his hopes and dreams, everything he ever wanted or will want in life was just pinned on me, was throw on my shoulders.

But what can you do when you encounter that every day, hundreds of times?

AKA, what can you do when you're in India?

Last day in Nepal.

Past week has been kind of a blur- packing in the goodbyes, running last minute errands and so on.

Highlights:

Seeing a Hindi movie with Sabita! Bollywood is the new Hollywood. The movie, Patalia House, is kind of like an Indian version of The Rookie- it's about a cricket player who abandoned his dreams because of his father but eventually (at age 34) s given a chance to play professionally. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patiala_House) Unlike The Rookie though, it had a little bit of everything in it - comedy, romance, drama, amazing dance scenes,- you name it, it had it. Also, movie theaters in Nepal are nice. We didn't even go to a super fancy theater but some of them (there are only three...) have reclining chairs and waiters. All for two dollars- not too bad.

Last shabbat here I spent at Chabad- was really nice to hang out there, ran into some old friends and made some new ones. Also spent Friday cooking there (can you imagine making challah for hundreds of people?) Chabad here does amazing work, and if you're so inclined, they can definitely use donations.

One of the days, I went on a little trek with Erez to Pharphing, a little town a bit south of Kathmandu. It was nice to explore and we had some great dalbaat but I think I've concluded that once you've seen one Tibetan temple, you've kinda seen em all...

By the way, Aleeza has a great motto for Nepal "It's just not what you expect." That kinda covers it for everything- food you order, a shirt you buy, a trip you go on, a person you meet. So this week I had one of my own IJNWYE moments. I wanted to get Chooch a birthday present (Happy 17th!) and since it's fairly easy to make things here, I brought in a picture of small silver earrings in the shape of a heart and asked Bina, the jewelry lady if it was possible to copy them. "Sure, sure," she said. "I'll call you when they're done." So yesterday she called me to tell me they were ready. I walked to the store that afternoon and waited as she rummaged around, finally producing a rather large box. Smiling, she opened it and there lay two beautiful silver heart earrings- just as I ordered. Except, they were HUGE. As in, the size of my face, not the size of two delicate earrings. But, like I said, IJNWYE.

Another highlight of the week- two nights ago there was HUGE thunderstorm in Kathmandu, unlike anything I'd every experienced. I had already woken up from the thunder and lightening when there was a really loud BOOM- it was one of the loudest thunders I'd every heard! I ran across the hall to Ari's room, only to find that Aleeza and Erez were already there all huddled together. Just like kids, we stayed there until the storm was over. I think we wanted to make hot cocoa but there was no cocoa. Or electricty for that matter. Ke Garne... P.S.- the insanely lous sound was actually lightening hitting the Monkey Temple, which is a two minute walk from the house. Check it out here http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=Lightening+damages+Swoyambhu+Pratapur+temple&NewsID=276524

Leaving to the airport in an hours. Although I only have four actual hours of flying time, I have to fly to Dehli, then to Mumbai, then finally to Goa...so that makes thirteen hours with stopovers. Lucky me.

But maybe I'll be too drained and exhausted to be sad about the fact that I'm leaving this place. It's been difficult, surprising, frustrating, delightful, annoying, overwhelming, and more. But, when all is said and done, you know what? It's a place I've grown to love, and a place I can call home...

Living in a mud hut in Nepal and living as a tourist (is that what I am?) in Nepal are two very different things.

Firstly, I generally have running water. And, an indoor bathroom. But what's most disorienting to me right now is that I get to relax (or try to). And pretend I'm on vacation. It's been suprisingly difficult going from an intense work schedule (emotionally and physically) to paragliding over the Himalayans.

Maybe you need some more background on that...

So the day after TBT ended a group of us headed off to Pokhara, a beautiful lakeside city in Nepal, 7 hours outside of Kathmandu. We spent a few days there ( recovering) and for the first time we got in some R & R. Good food, some sleeping, and an occasional hot shower. One of the days I woke up, decided I felt like going paragliding and voila- I flew over the Himalayans. By the way Tbaums- skydiving was wayyyy more fun. Still, flying over Everest? Pretty cool. Nepal, by the way, is rife with outdoor/adventure sports- most of which I won't get to do this time. Maybe some other day....

We also went hiking, took walks, and went on a great bike trip around the gorgeous Phewa Tal lake. (Best part was stopping off at some quiet lakeside gazebo and cafe and just lying in the sun for hours..)

I headed back to Kathmandu after the long weekend and have been hanging out with some Nepali friends here. Yesterday, I worked on Bijay's Hebrew U application with him and got to see his house- shocking, but a Nepali bachelor pad looks VERY different than an American bachelor pad. By the way, Bijay is amazing. He started an organization for working children in Nepal at age 16 and has been involved every since, working with the UN, the Nepali government, and of course, TBT. He also started (through TBT) the first social activist youth movement in Nepal, Hami Yuva. When I get disheartened about the situation here, I just think about people like Bijay- they're going to change this place for the better.I'm sure of it. (Btw, Nepal now has a Prime Minister! After 17 tries! Still no cabinet though....)

I've also been wandering around the city on my own- you know what the best feeling is? Walking around a foreign city with a map in your hand and actually figuring out how to get places.I wouldn't say I'm perfect at it (I'm in Nepal after all, there are no addresses...) but the difference to how I felt on day two of TBT (our Alone Tour) and now is HUGE. And that's great.

I also visited the Creative Womens Workshop- an amazing 'factory' (aka four women in a kitchen working) where they make BEAUTIFUL paper items- journals, cards, albums, anything. They can even make skirts. Out of Paper.

(yes that's PAPER!)

And everything there is organic, inexpensive, natural, and helps support destitute women. Aranja, the woman who manages the place seems to be another one of those gems. She's studied abroad in Israel and Canada and now works with a whole bunch of micro-finance programs and started the workshop in order to generate income for poor women here.

So cool.

I've also been working on finalizing my travel plans to India. Looks like I'll be leaving Nepal in a week or so and starting off in Goa. Just thinking about leaving is hard...

Note to everyone:

DON'T SEND ME MAIL.

Yonatan, public shoutout, thank you SO much.

But, I didn't actually get my package.

Maybe I should backtrack a bit.

Eliah tells me that there's a notice in our post office box saying I got a package. He tried to get it for me but they wouldn't let him. So, I decide to take the day to go to the post office and gather my package. I say 'take the day' because I'd been warned by others that the post office here is a nightmare.

Wasn't warned enough...

So I get into a cab. First, I get dropped off at the wrong place. After walking around a bit I see a sign for the post office. I enter a dimly lit building. No lines, order, or signs, just people milling around. I try to ask someone where the PO Boxes are. Fail. Finally, I call my friend Roni who says something about going outside, finding room 31, and taking it from there.

I walk outside to a courtyard. Tons of people around (doing nothing). This place is a maze of dark, decrepit rooms and smelly hallways. Somehow, I find room 31. Am told to go to room 34 instead. I enter, tell them I have a package. The guy takes me to the room and leaves me there. Oh, okay, I'm expected to find it on my own. So there I am, in a room of hundreds of packages sifting through, looking for my name. No go.

I find the worker and am told to 'maybe' go to room 29. I go to room 29 but wait, it's just the office part, not the actual room. So I find the actual room and am told I need the slip of paper that says I have a package. I get lost for 15 minutes and find the post boxes. The nice didi there helps me find the correct one and I go back to room 29, slip in hand, and show the guy behind the counter.

'We need your passport,' he says. I produce my passport (I'd been forewarned).

'Now we need a copy of your passport.' The slip to redeem it doesn't mention needing one. But the guy doesn't care. Okay, so I'm near to tears. I walk out of the office and wander around looking for a photocopy machine place. After 40 minutes I have not found a place. Frustrated, I walk back to the post office and tell the counter guy that I couldn't find anything. 'Oh,' he says. 'There's a photocopy machine here.' (Yea?Thanks for telling me that before.....). I walk to another room. 'You can't use the photocopy machine' the guy says. Ready to scream, I walk back to tell counter guy.He sends a didi with me back to the other office to see if she can use the photocopy machine. After a long debate, they don't let her either. I am so close to jumping over and just using the darn machine myself.

We walk back to the counter. Tell the guy what happened. 'Just go get your package,' he says.

I'm elated and I walk in, show the worker my slip and he finds a small package. Just seeing something from home makes me happy. 'But wait', he says, 'you need to get a signature of approval- go to the counter.' I walk back to counter guy and tell him. 'No,' he says. 'I can't sign because you don't have a copy of your passport.'

So now I lose it.

I start BAWLING. Everyone stares. Tears are streaming down my face and the guy just stands there, gaping. I would have grabbed the package and ran but he was holding it. As it was, I took the slip, crumpled it up and threw it away.

Then, with some final yelling (In English, Hebrew, and Nepali) I gave up. And walked out.

Sans package.

And they now have the slip to redeem it.

And on the way home the taxi I was in broke down.

But, the meeting with the Minister and AutismCares was great. I think he's going to try to get them government support, and also, he gave them a slot to present at a conference on special education in late February. Still crazy that we, an Israeli organization, needed to connect a Nepali minister with his Nepali constituents.

Last story:

Yesterday, Beruria and I had to make breakfast. It's always tricky buying groceries here because Swoyambhu (our neighborhood) is the monkey capital of Kathmandu. So we're walking home, surrounded by serene Tibetan men and women making pilgrimage to the local temple, and Beruria is carrying a bag of eggs. All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I see agiant monkey leaping across the street towards us. I freeze as it jumps onto Beruria, who promptly SHRIEKS, throws her hands in the air, and drops all of her groceries, eggs included.

I'm still frozen when, out of nowhere, the (seemingly serene) aforementioned Tibetan women kick into gear. Three of them race towards us, SCREAMING and waving their hands to scare the monkey runs away. One of them has a rock in her hand, another pulls out a slingshot. I kid you not. They gather up our eggs, take us off to the side, provide us with a new bag and the wise advice "Put in shawl, yes?"

So while Nepal's post office might have been the most traumatic experience in recent years, you can't help but love a place where elderly Tibetan women turn into wild Amazons to help you.

Only in Nepal...